Pressure Cooker Butter Chicken

You know and love our Paleo Butter Chicken: it’s easy, it’s paleo-ized, and it’s DAMN GOOD. Now, new and improved, you can enjoy your favorite dinner (and omelette with the leftovers) in a fraction of the time with this pressure cooker butter chicken. (By the way, that is a Youtube video of my first time with an Instant Pot at the top of the page).

Since this is all about saving time and getting incredible food into you fast, I’m gonna keep this short, and get you straight into the recipe. BUT, before I do, I need to tell you two things.

Second: We have partnered with Instant Pot to bring The Primal Desire tribe (yes, that means you) a $50 discount when purchasing the Instant Pot.

So. When I make my original paleo butter chicken, simmering a Costco-sized pack worth of chicken can take 45-60 minutes (over an hour with prep), but using the Instant Pot took only 8 minutes to cook the chicken! And using the pressure cooker requires very little time for you to be “hands-on”! Here’s the full breakdown of time:

Prep time = 15 minutes (most of that is cutting the chicken, but if you choose to use whole pieces, just add some more time in the pressure cooker)

2 cans coconut milk/cream (allow these to separate - DO NOT shake. Best if left in fridge overnight)

2 heaping tsp garam masala

½ cup sliced almond

½ cup cilantro

Instructions

If your pressure cooker has a sauté setting (as does the Instant Pot), use it to melt ghee.

Add 2 tsp salt and onions. Cook until onions are soft and translucent (you can cover with a lid to speed this process.

Add in garlic, ginger, turmeric, paprika and cayenne. Mix in and cook until fragrant.

Add canned tomatoes and the watery portion of coconut milk, mixing thoroughly with spices (getting all of the spices stuck to the bottom off the pan).

Add chicken and stir well.

Assuming you've selected to use bite-sized pieces of chicken, the time to cook the chicken will be fast: 8-10 minutes depending on the pressure your cooker uses. With the Instant Pot it took 8 minutes of pressurized cooking time.

Once cooked, stir in coconut cream, tomato paste, garam masala and most of the cilantro. Add more salt if needed.

About Raj

I’m trained as a pharmacist, but my passion lies in changing people’s mental and physical health through amazing food… and laughter. I’ll laugh at my own jokes even if you don’t.
I love food. Lust may be a more appropriate word. Prepare to get your Paleo-induced drool-on!

Thanks Michele!
Definitely cook the spices longer than I did in the video (got distracted being filming the recipe for the first time).
Let us know how it goes! Look how excited I am! So many exclamation marks!!!! Hahaha

Just wanted to pipe in … it never came to pressure for me, just began counting down. I noticed you don’t have any liquid in the recipe and the coconut milk and tomato paste were not liquid enough to get it to come to pressure so I had to add water. Is that just missing from the ingredients? Or did I do something wrong? Had some scorching on the bottom too. It was still delicious though! Just was wondering on those couple points.

Thanks Karen. I had added that note below the recipe (maybe I should add it to the recipe itself) as it seems to depend on the thickness or the tomato paste/coconut milk you use. The last time I used a different tomato paste than before and ran into the same problem. Added 1/4 cup of vegetable stock and that seemed to help.
But no you weren’t missing an ingredient from the original recipe. Thanks for letting me know!

Hi Raj! I was not able to get this to pressure either the first time. The flavor is so good I tried it again. This time I only used one can of tomato paste and a can of diced tomatoes instead with no additional water. It did not come to pressure still until I opened it up and stirred it. The bottom of the pan had burnt slightly. Once I scraped this off it and added 3 oz of water it came to pressure. I hope this helps!

Meryl,
The truth is I don’t have an answer for you. I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I ran into this problem myself. I’m thinking about trying to cook it without the tomato paste, or with half the tomato paste, and then adding it in after it’s cooked. But I don’t know how the coconut milk will do on it’s own.
It worked so well the first few times with the ingredients I had, who knew this was going to be a problem? Never fear, I will not rest until I have an answer…

I have had the same problem with it not coming to pressure. So far I have added over a cup of stock and it’s still not reaching pressure. The chicken is cooked now but it’s strange that it’s not reaching full pressure.

Day 1 with my new pressure cooker and this was my first recipe. I didn’t have tomato paste and used some canned diced tomatoes instead. I was a little nervous, but it came out to be a wonderful dish! So full of flavor! Thanks so much!

You totally nailed it with the canned tomatoes! I’ve adjusted the recipe as there were a lot of issues with coming to pressure in the Instant Pot. I recommend adding the tomato paste as well to give it that nice thick sauce in the end.

Hello Raj. Thank you for sharing this recipe. I did double it (we have a large family) and I added 1/2 cup water. . . never came to pressure. After 4 sessions of 8 minutes, i tossed it into large french roaster on cook top. The bottom of the IP was scorched. I did not exceed the fill line. The seasoning was PEREFECT and delectable! I really would like to figure out the cause of not coming to pressure so that we can make again. I wanted to thank you for sharing this and ask you to persevere in finding the perfect ratio so that it can be an IP wonder meal!

Thank you for writing. I am sorry that this has not worked out as well as it should, and that I haven’t been around to address this. Just so you know, I was thinking about it a lot until I actually got to Cuba, but now that I’m back, I am brain-storming solutions. Today’s trial was a fail, but I have a plan for tomorrow.

Believe me, I will keep working on this until it’s remedied (I’m not happy with the “add water” option as it just results in a soupy finished product). Stay tuned!

Hi, I just made the recipe, exactly, to the T, as it was written. I ended up having to drain off 6 cup of liquid once it was finished. It was butter chicken soup. I saved the extra liquid in one quart jar and one pint, for the freezer. I am not going to try and make this in the Instant Pot again. Also, I wish had added the ginger and garlic to saute with the onion. Even with the spice saute, they were still crunchy after adding chicken and Pressure cooking 8 minutes.
Butter Chicken is supposed to have a thick sauce and I don’t think Pressure cooking it is very compatible. Honestly, it would have cooked just as fast on the stove top. All the saute work in the small bottomed IP would have gone faster in my large chef skillet. But I always admire anyone willing to try new things.

Too bad it didn’t work out for you. Of course I automatically wondered if your chicken was frozen or how thin you coconut milk was, but you sound pretty set against any suggestions. In my early trials I was having the same problem, but those issues are corrected.

Thanks for the feedback. If you want a non-IP butter chicken, the original recipe is superior: here.

I made this a couple days ago in my IP. The flavor was wonderful! It was very, very soupy though… I used the “new” version of the recipe. Do you have any other suggestions for things I can try for a thicker sauce? I was going to add some arrow root flour as a thickening agent, but wife didn’t want to risk ruining the great flavor so we ate it as-is. Just had the leftovers today for lunch, and even better than day 1! I don’t have a lot of experience with the IP but I did notice that it took a long while to come to pressure… Maybe 20+ mins or so? Would draining the liquid from tomatoes help, or would it then be too dry to pressurize?

Justin,
I emailed you about this, let me know if any of those suggestions worked (reducing tomato liquid, thickening with arrowroot at the end if needed, etc). Soupy is no good, and you’re the first to tell me that’s how it turned out. Thanks for letting me know about your experience! We’ll figure it out buddy!

I just got an IP and this was the first recipe I tried in it. The chicken turned out perfect but like the person above, the sauce was very thin and tasted a bit watery. I followed the recipe to a T. Since you mentioned Aroy-D coconut cream I used one can of that (had hardly any watery part) and one can of Aroy-D coconut milk (almost all watery, not much thick part). I’m wondering if I use 2 cans of the coconut cream next time if that’d help. I just worry it won’t come to pressure. And I used stewed tomatoes with all their juice so maybe drain a bit of the juice or get crushed tomatoes instead. What do you think? It took about 10 min to come to pressure.

The butter chicken turned out amazing! Everyone loved it! I probably will take the praise for this… Just for a few more days until i tell everyone the “secret” to my secret recepie. Lol. I never used coconut milk in a butter chicken before and I was a bit skeptical to try it out! But it was great! Cant wait to try out other dishes on here! 🙂 Thanks Raj!

I don’t comment enough about great food but I had to about this dish. I just got my Instant Pot and this was my second meal in it. We love Thai and Indian food and this was amazing. Perfect even for our 13 year old. I have some challenging allergies and this worked wonderful. Tree Nuts, Peanuts, Shellfish, Dairy and Soy allergies make some recipes out of reach for me. We will have this again soon.
thank you!

Ah man! I was so confused by the directions because they weren’t like your video so I made it how you did in the video. Now my pot won’t come to pressure and after reading all the comments I see why! 🙁

Thank you so much for the recipe!! It was absolutely fantastic and everyone loved it. The only substitution I made was using 1 can of Trader Joe’s Coconut Cream in place of 1 of the cans of coconut milk to give it a bit more body and a few shakes from my real lemon shaker 🙂

That is confusing isn’t it… The brand I use, Aroy-D says “coconut milk” but it is often referred to as “coconut cream” to differentiate from the coconut milk drink. I added a link to help with the confusion. You made the right call.

Planning to make butter chicken in the next few days, but had a few questions after watching your video:

1) After you tossed the chicken in the pot and put the lid on, it looked like you still had it on the Sautee setting. Can you confirm?

2) If I don’t have the chicken in bite size pieces, how long would I cook it for?

3) Also, in reading several comments, it looks like it turned out soupy for some. How do I prevent this from happening?

4) In your video, you added the coconut milk and/or cream after adding the chicken. But in the actual recipe, you say to add in the coconut cream, tomato paste, and garam masala after it’d done cooking. Which should I follow?

Thanks for checking. Follow the instructions in the typed recipe: as you can see I had updated the recipe written here.

1) No, once the chicken is in and the lid is closed I used the manual mode.

2) According to the Instant Pot website, cooking time for chicken drumsticks, legs and thighs is 10-15 min.

3) The coconut milk that is used should be that from the can (click the link in the ingredients list to see the actual one that I use). By allowing it to separate and first pouring in the thin liquid part, the InstantPot can come to pressure, and then adding the thick creamy part in at the end adds to thickening the sauce.

4) That was an important change to allow the IP to come to pressure. Again, follow the instructions in the typed recipe.

Hi there, I made this and it was yummy. As I don’t care for the texture of pre-cut chicken thighs, could I use already shredded chicken and add it in after the sauce cooks? Or is an integral part of the recipe the ‘juices’ that the chicken releases into its sauce? I was thinking I could add broth back in, too, since I plan to use the meat from cooking a whole chix to make broth, so I’ll have both shredded chicken and broth available in excess. What do you think? Thanks for the recipe!

Hi Rachel,
Uh, yeah, I don’t see why not. I mean yeah, the meat juices definitely add to it, but if you’ve got a texture issue. I don’t quite understand your brother question, but I would base that decision on how thick the sauce is in the end (I don’t think you’ll want to add it).
Let me know how it goes.

So butter chicken is a misnomer as even the ghee is just a Tbsp in the recipe. Im kinda wondering…
I saw one recipe where they used 2 sticks of butter and a can of coconut milk for about 5lb of boneless thighs.
Then again, Paleo mite not jive with butter? Is that considered milk?
Thx!
Also, Ive never made chicken with a sauce in the IP that wasnt SOUP. I tried PIP too and all the water under bowl just rose up to the lid and rained down into the bowl. I can imagine this would end up soup too. I will try it on the stove. I only do chicken in the IP now when I want broth and some boiled meat for a dish or salad. Oh well, the IP cant do everything!

HI! So… 1) Ghee is clarified butter, butter without the milk solids, as neither of us have dairy allergies, butter if you can tolerate it is just fine!
2) It is called “Butter chicken” because it is a gravy with spices and thick cream or butter. Origins are thought to be from Delhi, Punjabi cuisine. There is some debate it seems, but ghee and coconut cream seem to still make a delicious rich and creamy dish.
3) Raj made and remade this recipe and then revised it again to get the right texture, but you are absolutely right if you prefer to do it the old fashioned way we have a recipe for that too! 🙂 Butter chicken

I’m so looking forward to trying your Paleo Butter Chicken in the Instant Pot. However, I’m always scared that a dish will end up too spicy for our sensitive tastebuds. When asked at Indian restaurants how spicy we’d like our dish on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the spiciest, we ask for a 0 or .5 ;). Do you have suggestions on how I should adjust the spice quantities to make sure the dish turns out palatable for us?

Hey Britt,
Good question, and a fair one since I ask for a 7 out of 5…. This is not a spicy dish, but I would recommend that you try it without the cayenne to start. That should be OK for you, but please let me know how it goes.

Just made this and it was amazing, thanks so much for the great recipe! Seriously, I love Indian food and this was better than what I’ve had in many restaurants and definitely the best curry I have made myself. I was also worried it would be too soupy, but adding the tomato paste and coconut cream at the end really thickened the sauce up perfectly. It did make an abundance of delicious sauce (way more than I needed for 2lbs of chicken) so next time I will definitely do it with 3lbs. In my opinion fresh garlic and ginger make all difference. Thanks again!

This was a last minute meal choice, because I had everything except the coconut milk, chicken and tomato paste. I ended up making this with a center cut pork loin roast cut into bite sized pieces, and half and half as replacements. i was worried about the pork making it a terrible combination. I threw in an extra can of diced tomatoes, and though it added more liquid than I would have liked, the entire thing came out wonderfully. The pork was tender but cooked through, and the garam masala addition at the end? Perfect! Thanks!
Katelynn

I’m glad your version worked out and that we could provide the framework. I think pork generally will fit in as a chicken sub in most cases. I would have been worried about the amount of fluid as well, but I’m glad it worked out!

Just purchased Instant Pot and had to try this recipe first. I also had some trouble with it coming to pressure. I thought there was something wrong with my pot, till I started reading all the reviews. So I was happy that it cooked to perfection during second take ….it’s delicious….I added a bit more black pepper and some more garam masala….but the recipe is a keeper ….absolutely delicious. Thank you for sharing:)

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